I'm director of content strategy at startup Exitround. I was previously a staff reporter at Forbes covering start-ups and venture capital. I'm interested in entrepreneurs who want to change the world, or have a point of view or compelling story. Email me at tgeron.news@gmail.com. I was previously a reporter for Dow Jones VentureWire where my work also appeared in the Wall Street Journal. I've also written for Red Herring, the Long Beach Press-Telegram and other outlets. In a former life I was a web developer. Follow me on Twitter tomiogeron, or Facebook , or Google+.

Scan Your Temple, Manage Your Health With New Futuristic Device

With the sky-high costs of healthcare, consumers are looking for affordable alternatives to take control of their own health.

Walter de Brouwer, the former CEO of One Laptop Per Child Europe, has created a new company that is making new devices to give that control to consumers.

Founded in 2010, Scanadu is taking the wraps off three new products. The first, Scanadu Scout, is a small device that you hold up to touch the electrodes to your temple to take vital signs, such as heart rate, pulse transit time, electrical heart activity, temperature, heart rate variability and blood oxygenation. It takes less than ten seconds to get these readings, then sends the data to a Scanadu smartphone app via Bluetooth. The device is designed by Yves Behar at the Fuse Project.

Using imaging and sound analysis, molecular diagnostics, data analytics and algorithms, Scanadu is aiming to gather health data in a new way. The company is competing for the Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize and the Nokia Sensing X Challenge. De Brouwer, who has an academic background in linguistics and data analysis, wants to use new mobile technology as well as new ways of collecting and analyzing data to give consumers more control. De Brouwer’s goal is to create a noninvasive device that is fast, cheap and easy to connect with a smart phone. He says it could be the biggest change to home healthcare since the thermometer. “It’s a superb strategy but in retrospect it’s very, very hard to do this,” he says.

Walter de Brouwer

The Scout, which will cost less than $150, will prevent the need for many people to have to go to the doctor’s office. People will be able to easily gather data about themselves instead of having to rely on a doctor, which should also cut costs, de Brouwer says. In addition, the app will save this data so that people can see how their health is changing or improving over time and look at the readings to determine whether something is “normal” or out of the ordinary.

Project ScanaFlo is a small device that acts as a urine analysis reader. The company sees this as an over-the-counter disposable cartridge that can test for pregnancy complications, preeclampisa, gestational diabetes, kidney failure and urinary tract infections. The idea is also that pregnant women can use it throughout their pregnancy. The data is transferred from the device to a smartphone via a QR code. (The company did not want to publish photos of this device.)

Project ScanaFlu is a low-cost disposable cartridge that can test for cold and flu symptoms by testing saliva. The idea is that people can immediately find out whether they have the flu or have no illness at all. The ScanaFlu can test for Strep A, Influenza A, Influenza B, Adenovirus and RSV. While there are existing tests that people can buy at pharmacies, they are not as fast and not connected to mobile devices, de Brouwer says. “They’re not frictionless and do not communicate with mobile,” he says. “If you go to the doctor and take a test it will go to the lab for 3 to 4 days.This is a Twitter-ized world. People want (test results) immediately.”

De Brouwer also envisions people being able to use anonymized data from the broader community with the product, in a kind of inductive “peer-to-peer medicine.” In this model, people can get simple answers from the crowd, while still getting “deductive” analysis from doctors. It’s all focused on letting people manage their own health. Today, with the trend of “quantified self,” people are using a number of devices to track their exercise and sleep, such as the Jawbone Up, Nike Fuel Band, Fitbit and others. de Brouwer thinks this will make it easier for people to get on board with Scanadu, though his company manages much deeper data than those exercise apps.

Scanadu still needs to get FDA approval for these products and the company is talking to officials now, de Brouwer said. He expects to get the three produts to market by the end of 2013. Meanwhile, the company is working on a number of other products. De Brouwer sees these three as just the beginning.

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.

Comments

I am hoping we will begin to see a rapid reduction in costs in both healthcare and education as the internet changes their business model. Unfortunately, it will also mean a lower number of highly paid employees. Telemedicine and online education can not be stopped.

21 C.F.R. Sec. 812.7 Prohibition of promotion and other practices. A sponsor, investigator, or any person acting for or on behalf of a sponsor or investigator shall not:

(a) Promote or test market an investigational device, until after FDA has approved the device for commercial distribution.

“It’s sold as a research device for investigational use. Everyone who buys it is essentially a researcher in that project,” De Brouwer told MobiHealthNews in May of 2013 at the beginning of the Indiegogo campaign. Key words there: SOLD, EVERYONE, and BUYS. Walter De Brouwer himself characterized the Indiegogo campaign as selling the Scout as an “investigational device” to Indiegogo buyers, which is explicitly prohibited by the FDA.

That’s all somewhat academic at this point as Scanadu is more than 6 months past the date it promised to deliver those “investigational” devices to Indiegogo purchasers. The excuses coming from Scanadu for the delays have been pretty lame, and are frankly in direct contradiction to De Brouwer’s claims in May of last year when he stated in MobileHealthNews that “The device has seen 18 iterations, the industrial design is ready, the algorithms are in place, the manufacturer is secured, the FDA audit trails are operational. For Scanadu this is just the end of the beginning. We did Indiegogo when we were over-ready.” That sure seems like one big fat fib right about now.

The only thing lamer than De Brouwer’s excuses is the failure of media outlets like this one to follow up on the hype they helped build for this debacle.